-Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Driver Categorizes Kansas Scenario As \u201cDoubly Important\u2026Plus\u201d-<\/p>\n
KANSAS CITY, Kans. (May 31, 2011) \u2013 Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver Kurt Busch heads into this weekend\u2019s STP 400 at Kansas Speedway looking to post his best-ever finish on the 1.5-mile tri-oval track. One thing for sure is that the 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup Champ certainly realizes the importance of the Kansas track on the schedule, especially since a second race was added there for the 2011 season.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it\u2019d be easy to just look at the schedule now and say, \u2018Hey, they added another race at Kansas and that\u2019s twice the significance as far as the big picture goes,\u2019\u201d said Busch, who came from behind to post a fourth-place finish in Sunday\u2019s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. \u201cBut the second race at Kansas is much more than just adding a second race. You\u2019d be extremely accurate to label it as doubly important\u2026plus. It\u2019s definitely more than just twice the amount of points on the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way that our season is laid out now, both of the Kansas races come at critical times on the schedule,\u201d said Busch, who after posting his best finish of the season at Charlotte is back up to sixth in the points standings. \u201cThe race there this weekend comes at a point where all the teams are jockeying for all they can get in their focus to make the Chase this year. A win there would go a long way in getting in by grabbing one of the final two spots available for race winners. A solid top-five finish there will help in the effort to get in by being one of the top-10 points guys when we get back to Richmond in September.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking on down the road, when we head back to Kansas for the fall race, it\u2019ll be the fourth race of the Chase,\u201d said Busch, currently 15 points out of fifth. \u201cBy then everyone one of the Chase guys will be scratching and clawing for everything they can get. There\u2019s a lot that will happen between this weekend\u2019s Kansas race (the 13th race of 2011) and the October battle (30th of the 36), but it\u2019s easy to see how important both races are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the testing rules that are in place in our sport now where we can\u2019t test at an active track where we race, that only adds to the significance. We\u2019ve added Kentucky to the schedule and that removed a major intermediate track from the possible test schedule. With all the mile-and-a-half tracks that we have on the schedule, it can make or break you with your performances there.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo where would you go to test for Kansas? The way our schedule is, you can actually look at the first Kansas race as your testing for the second race there. I can guarantee you that our Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Team will be taking as many notes as we can this weekend at Kansas. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven though there is the possibility of the weather and track conditions being totally different from the first race to the second, you still have to come in there with that being part of your game plan. Any track time you can get these days is so important. When we get back to Kansas in October, Dave Winston (team engineer) and all of our guys will be pulling out their notes and data from this weekend\u2019s race and last fall\u2019s race there.\u201d<\/p>\n
In 10 career starts at Kansas, Busch is still looking for his first win and first top-five finish there. He has two top-10 finishes with his best tally to date being a sixth-place finish during his successful run to the 2004 series points title. Entering this weekend, Busch has a 20.4 average start at Kansas and a 19.0 average finish. He has led a total of 81 laps there, running at the finish in nine of the races and finishing on the lead lap in six of them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what it is about the Kansas track,\u201d said Busch. \u201cThe year that I won the championship, I finished sixth and that\u2019s been the highlight so far. It\u2019s a flat mile-and-a-half that reminds me of Las Vegas when it was built and flat. It\u2019s just a tough combination. If you\u2019re just a tick off, you feel like you play catch-up most of the weekend and if you unload fast, you\u2019re tough to chase down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Busch started ninth and finished 13th in last October\u2019s most-recent visit to Kansas Speedway. His lap of 31.055 seconds\/173.885 mph) compared to the lap of pole-winner Kasey Kahne\u2019s 30.920 seconds (174.644 mph) had him starting in the top 10 and hoping to pull out another top-10 finish on the track.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs hard as it may be to understand with what we\u2019ve fought most of the time this year, we just fought a really loose car for most of that race,\u201d said Busch. \u201cI had a handful of steering wheel most of the day and we did all we could to keep up with the leaders. We made all kinds of adjustments during the race; with air pressures, wedge and even a right-rear spring rubber. We stayed inside the top 10 for most of the race, but just couldn\u2019t gain the track position we needed late. Once the track rubbered-in, our car got tight in the middle of the corners and was tough to drive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Busch and his Steve Addington-led Shell-Pennzoil \u201cDouble-Deuce\u201d Dodge Team will be bringing out another brand new Charger this weekend as they debut their \u201cPRS-754\u201d chassis. \u201cIt\u2019s a continuous effort to bring out stronger race cars,\u201d said crew chief Addington. \u201cWe are seeing our cars getting stouter, but like I told them last weekend at Charlotte, it\u2019s not going to be an overnight deal to get back up front. We are confident we are headed in the right direction and we\u2019ll get there.\u201d<\/p>\n
This weekend\u2019s schedule at Kansas Speedway begins on Friday with practices from 12:30 p.m. till 1:50 p.m. (CDT) and from 3:30 p.m. till 5:00 p.m. Saturday\u2019s 11:10 a.m. single round of qualifying will set Sunday\u2019s 43-car starting field. Sunday\u2019s STP 400 (267 Laps, 400.5 miles) has a scheduled 12:00 noon CDT (1:00 p.m. EDT) starting time and features live coverage by FOX-TV and MRN Radio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
-Shell-Pennzoil Dodge Driver Categorizes Kansas Scenario As \u201cDoubly Important\u2026Plus\u201d- KANSAS CITY, Kans. (May 31, 2011) \u2013 Shell-Pennzoil Dodge driver Kurt Busch heads into this weekend\u2019s STP 400 at Kansas Speedway looking to post his best-ever finish on the 1.5-mile tri-oval track. One thing for sure is that the 2004 NASCAR Sprint Cup Champ certainly realizes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[15775],"class_list":["post-5457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nascar","tag-nascar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}